It is clear that Bryant has no crying shame

FIRST THINGS first after listening to the Kobester blubber on and on about his loss of trust in Lakers management and his demand to be traded.

We’ve just got to make him happy, so we must find the identity of the Lakers insider who squealed to The Times, and publicly execute this person.

The next step belongs to the Lakers, as e-mailer Ron Kalinowski pointed out.

“Kobe talks about not being able to rebuild the trust with the Lakers,” Kalinowski wrote, “well, maybe the Lakers should take a page out of his book and buy him a big diamond ring. Worked for him.”

Then everybody lives happily thereafter.

JUST ANOTHER lovely day in Lakerland, or as the Kobester was saying on one of the 100 or so radio shows that he was on Wednesday, “This is one of the roughest days ever -- it’s tough, man.”

Yes, sir, you’ve got it easy on your job compared to what the Kobester had to endure, spending an entire day talking to the likes of Stephen A. Smith and Vic the Brick.

It was exhausting, he said, and a tantrum usually does wear out a baby.

A day after tearing into the Lakers and calling them a mess among other things, it apparently wasn’t enough to get whatever he wanted, so like a child who doesn’t get the attention he or she demands, the Kobester really began carrying on.

Me, I would’ve just sent him to timeout, but then some people believe in just letting a baby cry.

A DAY after telling everyone he doesn’t want to be traded and some time after 9 a.m., the Kobester goes on radio station 1050 out of New York and tells Smith, “Yeah, I would like to be traded, yeah.” Later he says, “At this point, I’ll go play on Pluto.”

Smith asks, is there anything the Lakers could do to change Bryant’s mind?

“No,” he says.

“Nothing?” Smith responds.

“No,” the Kobester says.

But what if Jerry West returns to the Lakers? Smith wants to know.

“It’s beyond that point,” the Kobester says. “I know who the insider is.”

I’m thinking right away that will make the execution easier -- rather than lining up everyone in the Lakers’ front office against the wall.

Smith wraps up the interview and asks again, “Is there anything to get you to remain with the Laker organization?”

“No, bro,” Bryant says.

ESPN TV begins running a crawl alerting the world that there is nothing that can change the Kobester’s mind about staying with the Lakers.

A LITTLE after noon and the Kobester, sounding as if he might cry, goes on 710 with Dan Patrick. When Patrick asks what happens if the Lakers don’t trade him, Bryant says, “What am I going to do? I’ve still got to perform.”

He says he has talked to Phil Jackson and that the coach told him, “I can’t blame you; I feel the same way.” So are we to understand now that Jackson also doesn’t trust the Lakers’ front office and wants to be traded too?

Patrick wants to know, if West returned, would that be enough to keep Bryant in L.A.? “That would definitely help out the situation,” Bryant says.

Bryant tells Patrick he stands behind everything he said earlier to Smith when he demanded a trade, but concludes the interview by saying, “I’m hoping something can be resolved so I can stay here and be in the city I love.”

He’s talking out of both sides of his mouth again.

A SHORT time later the Kobester is on 570 with the Loose Cannons, and there is genuine concern the Brick might need to be revived. It will be interesting to see what happens if he requires mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.

When Steve Hartman makes it both a statement and a question: “You want to be Laker?” Bryant responds, “More than anything else. I don’t want to go nowhere.”

And there you go. That clears up everything. The Kobester wants to be traded, demands that he be traded and there’s nothing the Lakers can do to keep him here, but “more than anything else, I don’t want to go nowhere.”

I think someone needs a nap.

I WENT to the Ducks’ Stanley Cup game Wednesday night so I could ask the team’s general manager, Brian Burke, what he thought about the Kobester’s demand to be traded.

“It’s none of my business,” Burke said.

I didn’t see a reason to hang around much longer, but didn’t want to leave right away and give Burke the idea that no one around here cares about hockey.

So we talked about Skippy the Squirrel, and Burke said he would buy one of the “I know I can make it” blue wrist bands that will soon be available for the benefit of Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA.

“I think we have our players in the community doing things more than any other NHL team and I’m willing to bet money on it,” Burke said. “That’s part of the speech they get at the beginning of the year. If they want to live in a place as beautiful as Orange County and make this kind of dough, they will give back.

“It’s not optional. Come see me if you don’t want to do it, and I’ll trade you. Any visitor in a hospital is a good thing, but if it’s Chris Pronger or a Scott Niedermayer, they can do so much more than you or I. It’s like taking a cover off a lantern in a room.”

Just imagine how excited the kids at Mattel Children’s Hospital at UCLA are going to be in the next few weeks when Pronger, Niedermayer and Burke show up with the Stanley Cup. I guess now I might have to keep my eye on the Ducks.

T.J. Simers can be reached at

t.j.simers@latimes.com. To read previous columns by Simers, go to latimes.com/simers.